We Are a Nation of Immigrants
16 January 2018 • by Bob • Politics, Ponderings
Living in a border state, I am constantly reminded of the need for immigration. Here in Tucson, we see the myriad ways which immigration has shaped the culture; our entire Southwest identity is a melting pot of Hispanic, Native American, and Old West subcultures. But if you would permit me to put things in perspective, unless you are 100% Native American, then you are either an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants. For example, my ancestors were immigrants: my father's family arrived from Ireland in 1858 as refugees of the Great Famine, and the patriarch of my mother's family travelled to the fledgling American Colonies as an indentured servant in 1807.
No person of European, Asian, Latin American, or African descent can lay claim to native status in North America; (although if you go back as far as possible, even the ancestors of the 'Native Americans' migrated from somewhere else). Nevertheless, it pains me to see people who suggest that we should close our borders. To do so would be ludicrous; immigration has been and always will be the lifeblood of the United States.
However, immigration must be a legal process, and those who do not adhere to the letter of the law must not be allowed to continue residing here. To be fair, the United States' path to citizenship is long and difficult, but that is no excuse for violating the laws by which our nation is governed.
For those people who insist on incorrectly labeling illegal immigrants as undocumented workers, I would like to redirect your attention to an analogy that I saw the other day:
- If you are of legal age and driving a car with your driver's license in your pocket, then you are a legal driver.
- If you are of legal age and driving a car but you forgot your driver's license at home, then you are an undocumented driver.
- If you are not of legal age or you do not have a driver's license, then you are an illegal driver.
Make no mistake about this: if someone enters the United States by anything other than legal means, then they are not undocumented, they are here illegally, and they have no legal right to remain here. However, if someone if someone enters the United States using any of the methods prescribed in our nation's laws, then they are here legally, and from my perspective they are more than welcome to stay.
My son-in-law was born in Canada, and over the course of several years I watched as he navigated the steps to citizenship. I can tell you with complete honesty that many of the setbacks that he faced were ridiculous and unnecessary; for example: after years of work on his application for citizenship, someone simply failed to sign one document in my son-in-law's paperwork, (which is easy to do when you are dealing with hundreds of documents). When the mistake was discovered, common sense dictates that the single document would be returned for the appropriate signature. However, the United States government is apparently incapable of using common sense, and it rejected the entire packet, so my son-in-law was forced to restart the entire process. As I said earlier, the United States' path to citizenship is long and difficult, but my son-in-law persevered, and this past year I was privileged to attend his citizenship ceremony.
That being said, while the bureaucratic process should certainly be improved with regard to efficient process management, the need for a detailed and lawful path to citizenship is still required. For example, background checks are necessary to ensure that immigrants are not criminals escaping prosecution in their native countries, and basic health checks are required to ensure that other countries are not simply reducing the burdens on their civic responsibilities by relocating their infectious populace across our borders. Once immigrants have passed the basic checks set forth by our laws, I see no problem with making the path to citizenship a much-easier process than our nation currently possesses.
If I suddenly became emperor for a day, I would revamp our immigration system as follows:
- First, I would announce a temporary amnesty period, where everyone within our shores who is currently residing here illegally has five years to voluntarily report to the United States Immigration Naturalization Services (INS).
- Because of this temporary amnesty period, everyone who voluntarily reports to INS will be automatically granted work visas for the duration of the amnesty period, after which they will be required to renew their visas, (which should be an easy process).
- Those who do not report to INS during the temporary amnesty period will be subject to deportation, and possibly barred from applying for work visas or entry into the United States in the future.
- And lastly, the path from worker to citizen would be revamped so that productive immigrants will have a much-easier process to complete in order to remain in the United States indefinitely as full citizens.
Believe me, it's a good thing that I'm not emperor, but that being said - I am not alone in my desire to see our system of immigration preserved and legally enforced; here are like-minded thoughts from several former United States Presidents from throughout our nation's history:
- "Even as though we are a nation of immigrants, we're also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and they must be held accountable." Barack Obama
- "Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans - liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal - the largest voluntary migrations in recorded history... Immigration is not just a link to America's past; it's also a bridge to America's future." George W. Bush
- "We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years and we must do more to stop it." Bill Clinton
- "Why don't we work out some recognition of our mutual problems; make it possible for [immigrants] to come here legally with a work permit, and then while they're working here and earning here, they pay taxes here. And when they want to go back, they can go back." Ronald Reagan
- "The [United States] flourished because it was fed from so many sources - because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples." Lyndon B. Johnson
- "Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life." John F. Kennedy
- "Remember, remember always, that all of us, you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists." Franklin D. Roosevelt
- "We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite." Woodrow Wilson
- "Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." Thomas Jefferson
- "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong." George Washington
In closing, I think the following quotation from Ronald Reagan sums up what it means to be an immigrant to the United States:
"I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I don't know why he chose to write it, but I'm glad he did. He wrote that you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can't become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American."
Double Standards and Hypocrites
03 June 2017 • by bob • Rants, Politics
In response to comedienne Kathy Griffin's recent political stupidity, someone close to me (who shall remain nameless) posted the following image to Facebook with the caption that "Double Standards Abound:"
Now I will not attempt - even for a second - to defend any of the Drumpf's ludicrous statements; he is a never-ending stream of verbal diarrhea. However, I want you to imagine if four years ago some comedian had posed with the severed head of Obama... that guilty party would still be serving a jail sentence for a hate crime, and there's your real double-standard. Or what would have happened if the Drumpf had posed with the severed head of Hillary Clinton during the presidential race? Can you imagine the uproar that would have caused?
Make no mistake - the Drumpf is an idiot, but what Kathy Griffin did exceeds the mere assertion that she "went a little too far." If we take the Bette Davis quote from that image at face value and we assume that Ms. Griffin was just "giving her opinion" by her actions, then think about what that really means.
I'm sorry, but espousing the death of a sitting president is unconscionable, even if that president is hypocritical buffoon and you cannot stand him; you cannot defend the indefensible simply because you happen to loathe the target of their hatred.
New Political Terms
22 January 2017 • by bob • Politics, Rants, Humor
Given the recent performances of many public figures on the left, I have coined a new phrase:
hypocrat [hip-uh-krat]
noun
- a liberal who condemns the actions of a non-liberal, while at the same time defending or dismissing the actions of another liberal
- a liberal who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a liberal whose actions contradict stated beliefs
- a liberal who feigns some desirable or publicly-approved attitude, especially a liberal whose private life, opinions, or statements contradict his or her public statements
UPDATE: Sadly, it appears as though I was not the first person to think up this term:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hypocrat
Oh well. 
Please Behave Yourselves
21 January 2017 • by bob • Politics, Rants
Remember when this image was making the rounds right before the election?
Don't you wish that everyone had paid attention to it's message? [Deep Sigh]
Fake News on Inauguration Day
21 January 2017 • by bob • Politics
One of the big buzz words being thrown around these days is "Fake News," which is a perfectly-descriptive term for an all-too-frequent occurrence these days, and it became a significant factor in the United States' most-recent Presidential race. As a brief description "Fake News" is when hearsay, rumor, conjecture, propaganda, conspiracy theories, or even outright dishonesty is passed off as legitimate news correspondence. This behavior is currently in practice on hundreds of websites, and by lackeys from both the liberal and conservative sides of the country. (Note: This does not count satire from websites like The Onion or The Babylon Bee.)
The real danger that arises from "Fake News" websites (or Facebook pages) is that, to put it bluntly, many people are far more gullible than they think they are. And as a result, these beguiled patsies see an article with which they agree, and rather than establish the article's veracity through a reputable news outlet, they share it to Facebook or post it to a blog, and in so doing they perpetuate the inaccuracy. To be fair, in recent years the number of "reputable news outlets" has decreased significantly as the major news sources like NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR, and FOX have all resorted to pushing articles which meet their underlying political agendas at the expense of honest reporting. (Note: For this reason I prefer the BBC, which has a slightly left-leaning take on the news, but its generally pretty unbiased and blunt where the United States are concerned. Besides, no one with an English Accent would ever lie, would they? [Snicker])
In any event, after today's inauguration ceremony, the following image popped up from the folks at Occupy Democrats, which is one of the most-nefarious "Fake News" websites in existence:
This is a perfect example of "Fake News" in action; the two photos in this image are taken from opposite sides of the mall in order to exaggerate the crowd sizes. In addition, there is no indication that they were taken during the same hour of the respective inauguration ceremonies; the photo from 2009 might be an hour after the ceremony began, and the photo from 2017 might be an hour before the ceremony began. We have no context, but considering the source (the O.D. website) and the fact that the photos were already falsely utilized in order to support an opinion rather than an accurate portrayal of the facts, it's pretty easy to dismiss this image. And yet, I have seen dozens of people posting this image to Facebook with comments of overwhelming approval.
In this specific instance, it is far too simple for anyone to discredit the image. The video listed below from CNN shows an actual side-by-side comparison of the crowds during each inauguration ceremony:
Inaugural crowd sizes: Trump v. Obama
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politicsvideo/inaugural-crowd-sizes-trump-v-obama/vi-AAm4m6C
It is evident that there was a larger crowd for Obama's inauguration, which is as it should be; the nation's first African American president is considerably more-significant to history than Trump's election. However, the disparity was nowhere near the level of imbalance which that "Fake News" image was trying to convey.
Returning to my earlier point, this particular example of "Fake News" perfectly illustrates why the acceptance of these sorts of deliberately inaccurate images and stories do so much damage; these hoaxes replicate like viruses through social media, and they rapidly enter the collective psyche of those who eventually believe that these images and stories are true simply because they want them to be. This where another new term needs to be defined: "Post-Truth," which describes an all-too-common situation where opinions are formed and defended based on emotions rather than factual evidence.
Through honest self-examination, I think everyone can agree that we have all let our emotions get the better of us, (on more than one occasion), and we have all agreed with something simply because we wanted it to be right, even when common sense would argue otherwise. This philosophy led to a situation which was all-too prevalent during the election: everyone who was passing along inaccurate information created their own false reality, with which many of their friends actively participated, and yet no one was anywhere near the truth. After the election this syndrome was referred to as an "Echo Chamber," where people were simply hearing others repeat back what they said or wanted to hear. One such example was the poll numbers which everyone kept sharing on social media, which always seemed to indicate that Clinton would win the electoral college by a landslide, and yet on election day she lost the electoral college in a humiliating defeat. Of course, the 24x7 news coverage from all of the media outlets added a never-ending supply of fallacious data to the debate, but still - there were plenty of indicators that the election was a lot closer than the false narrative which everyone kept repeating; people just needed to take the time to look.
Nevertheless, we should all try to do better where "Fake News" is concerned. As a general rule, if you see something which seems too good to be true - or too bad to be true - please check with other news sources before posting anything to social media.
I think the following image sums up that sentiment quite nicely:
POSTSCRIPT:
The following blog contains a small list of "Fake News" websites which everyone should avoid:
Please Stop Sharing Links to These Sites
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2016/09/18/please-stop-sharing-links-to-these-sites/
There are many more, of course, but it's a good place to start.
01/21/2017 UPDATES: As another example of "Fake News," there was a bogus story making the rounds over a year ago about the Obama administration ordering guillotines in order to perform executions. On the one hand, I hate to include the link because I don't want to drive traffic to their website; but on the other hand, I want to show an example...
Obama Orders Guillotines To Be Used For Executions
http://www.tdtalliance.com/2016/03/obama-orders-guillotines-to-be-used-for.html
There are hundreds of thousands of stories just like this on the Internet, so don't believe everything you read.
One additional point which I should mention is something that a good friend said to me earlier today: a fabrication isn't real just because you agree with it, and something isn't fake just because you disagree with it. (Wise words, my friend.)
The Truth about Che Guevara, Castro, T-Shirts, and Motorcycle Diaries
02 January 2017 • by bob • Politics, Rants, History
After the recent long-awaited and highly-anticipated death of Fidel Castro, I must admit that I was shocked at the number of "famous people" who were emanating never-ending streams of revisionist history drivel about Castro's many "accomplishments," while falling over themselves in futile attempts to outdo each other with undo praise for this despicable despot. Make no mistake - Castro was a terrible, wicked, horrible dictator who sent thousands of innocent people to their graves.
However, on a completely related note is the number of misinformed idiots who walk around wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the following logo:
For those who are too stupid to know better, wearing a t-shirt like this in public is exactly like wearing a t-shirt with Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin printed on it. The subject of this ridiculous memorial attire is Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who was one of the worst mass-murders in the 20th century. Countless multitudes of gullible and easily-swayed malcontents read books like Guevara's "Motorcycle Diaries," and they fall victim to his knee-jerk deceptions about how much he cared for the plight of the poor in South America. While I completely agree that the corruption in South American politics is pervasive and often horrific, most people do not realize that the terrors which were brought about by Guevara were far worse than anything about which he had complained.
That being said, I recently discovered the following article which illustrates some of what I mean; this is a great article, and you should take a few minutes to read it:
The Truth About Che Guevara
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/truth-about-che-guevara
To put it mildly, Guevara was a spoiled, upper-class brat who became one of the worst mass murderers in Communism's long history of putting innocent people to death simply for having a college degree and/or being able to think for themselves. There are no two ways about it - if you lived in a country where Guevara had helped to overthrow your government, you simply would have been killed. No trial, no appeal - just executed.
All of this is to say - there is nothing admirable about wearing a t-shirt with Guevara's faced printed on it; the only thing that it signifies is that the person wearing the shirt is an idiot.
Goodbye 2016 - Hello 2017
01 January 2017 • by bob • Politics, History, Humor
Well, suffice it to say that 2016 was a weird year. The United States endured one of the worst presidential elections in decades, in which Americans were forced to choose between two utterly non-presidential candidates. (And of course, everyone on the planet knows how that turned out.)
Nevertheless, one of my favorite traditions each New Year is to read Dave Barry's Year in Review, which examines all of the newsworthy items for the past 12 months. Dave's reviews always remind me that no matter how stupid things seemed to be during the previous year, we should each take a moment to step back and thoughtfully contemplate just how stupid things really were...
And with that in mind, here is Dave's year-in-review for 2016:
Dave Barry's Year in Review: 2016 - What the ... ?
Bob's Presidential Campaign: Recap
29 November 2016 • by bob • Campaigning, Politics
Remember how I was running for President?
Well, it turns out that I would have won both the electoral college in a landslide AND the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who didn't actually vote for me.
Why More People Should Have Voted in This Election
10 November 2016 • by bob • Politics
For people who are either unhappy or ecstatic about this year's election, consider the following statistics:
The figures collected by United States Elections Project show that of the 231,556,622 people who are eligible to vote in our nation, only 131,741,500 actually participated, meaning that an estimated 99,815,122 people did not vote.(1) In other words, 43% of the population refused to contribute to this year's presidential race.
Think about that for a moment. That's almost 100 million people who could have made a difference.
With that in mind, let's look at some additional statistics from the election:
As of this writing, the New York Times' election website lists 60,071,781 popular election votes for HRC versus 59,791,135 votes for DJT, which is a difference of only 280,646 votes.(2) This means that even a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of votes which were not cast could have easily made the the difference between winning or losing for either candidate.
Just 0.003% more of the population would have given DJT a popular majority, although it would have taken much less than that for HRC to have swung a few of the Midwest states in her favor. For example, DJT won the state of Pennsylvania by only 68,236 votes, and he won the state of Florida by only 119,770 votes.(2) If those two states had gone to HRC, the election results would have been dramatically different; HRC would have had 277 electoral college votes on election day versus 241 for DJT. In other words, less than 200,000 votes could have elected HRC.
We all really need to let that concept sink in, regardless of whether you are satisfied or distraught by the results of this year's election.
What all this means for you personally is - you really need to mobilize your fellow party members to get out and vote for the next election. The participation of your fellow citizens will either swing the election in your candidate's favor, or it will widen the gap so that your candidate has a clear and uncontested victory.
FOOTNOTES:
- United States Elections Project (http://www.electproject.org/2016g)
- New York Times (http://nyti.ms/2fAyEAv)
Abolishing the Electoral College is Not a Good Idea
10 November 2016 • by bob • Politics
Many years ago, I used to think that abolishing the electoral college was a good idea. To be honest, I felt that way for the majority of my life. But that was until I studied more about the history and purpose of the electoral college, and then I slowly came to realize that even though situations like 2016's election debacle are a distinct possibility, our existing electoral system actually makes a lot of sense.
The following videos came out over a year ago, and they explain not only why the electoral college is essential when trying to prevent a candidate from only focusing on specific states with high populations, but also why the abolition of the electoral college would have drastic outcomes.
Do You Understand the Electoral College? |
The Popular Vote vs. the Electoral College |
To summarize these two videos - doing away with the electoral college sounds like a good idea when you're upset at the results of an election, but it's really not.
That being said, the word which best describes most Americans after this year's election is "angry." And I get it. You're probably angry. I'm angry. Millions of people are angry. This year's election sucked.
But that being said, impassioned and uninformed responses are not the best way to bring about the changes which our electoral process so desperately needs. If people really want to make a difference, they need to encourage the Democratic Party to abolish their ridiculous system of "Super Delegates," which is what helped HRC to unfairly steal the DNC's nomination from Bernie Sanders, who most-likely could have defeated the Drumpf.